Working on Family Tree

I have been working in Family Tree adding sources, photos and otherwise doing what I can to improve the records.

This is a list of the changes

Ida Judd Source Added

Harry Thomas Cory Source Added

Doris Ellen Lincoln Source Added

Herald Eugene Smith Source Added Two photos Added

Eugene Loren Lincoln Source Added

John H. Cory Source Added

Walter Judd Source Added

Susan Eliza Gee Source Added

Edward Larkin Discussion Added

 

Frank Eugene Lincoln Source Added

 

Erika Holz Source Added

 Amos Botsford Fuller Sources and photo Added

William Erastus Gee Source Added

Mary Ellen Kerr Source Added

 

Marion Joseph Kerr Source Added

 

Stephen G. Rowe Source Added

 

Esther Beckwith Source Added

 

Abigail Mack Source Added

I also put together another Adventure in Family Tree.This is the case of the unexpected husband.  Click Here to read.  This involves Susan Eliza Gee my great great grand aunt.

The many wives of Lysander Gee

The many wives of Lysander

Although there is a link to this file on my brother Martell’s website, I elected to place it on the Lysander Gee website as well.  This will explain why, in New Family Search, Lysander has a myriad of wives.  

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxseXNhbmRlcmdlZXdlYnNpdGV8Z3g6NTRhNDU1Njg1NDI2ZTk3OA

I put the following in the discussions in New Family Search in the record of Lysander Gee.

If you want an explanation of the wives of Lysander please contact me. laurence.gee@gmail.com  Here is a link to some information about them: http://www.geenet.org/Gee/Stories/Lysander/lysander_gee_and_his_wives.htm

When New Family Search first came out, Salmon Gee had two sets of parents.  Now he does not.  Lysander went to the Logan temple in 1888 and had his father Salmon sealed to the prophet Joseph Smith.  This was a common practice at the time.  New Family Search does not show those sealings now and we are instructed not to make any reference to ordinances in the discussion portion of New Family Search. 

This is an interesting story, so I will relate it here in this venue.  On September 19, 1888 the following took place in the Logan temple:

And my father Salmon Gee was

Adopted [sealed] to the Prophet Joseph Smith

Prest M. W. Merrill [we lovingly refer to him as Grandpa Merrill] officiating. And Br

Samuel Roskelly [Samuel was the recorder at the time] representing the Prophet

Joseph. And Sister Lucy Walker

Kimball Smith acting for the female

side of the Prophet.

And my brother George W. Gee, Giles Gee

and myself and sisters Sarah Caroline

Gee Amanda Malvina Gee and

Susan Eliza Luddington and Electa Gee were also

sealed to my father Salmon Gee

This is found on Page 253 of the Papers of Lysander Gee that I recently posted on the website.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxseXNhbmRlcmdlZXdlYnNpdGV8Z3g6N2I5ZGU0NjRiNmQ1ODc4NA

Lucy Walker Kimball, noted above, was married to the prophet Joseph Smith and later became the plural wife of Heber Chase Kimball.  Her story is found at the following website in Chapter III.

http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/LLittlefield.html

I found this very interesting.

George Washington Gee

I have been trying to step carefully through the Gee records in New Family Search.  Yesterday I received the following e-mail from Support Data Administration:
Dear Laurence Gee,
Re: Mary Jane Smith; PID: KWVQ-DBL

I have made some more changes to the records associated with Mary Jane Smith per your request.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

We appreciate your patience with us and wish you well in your family history efforts.

Sincerely,
FamilySearch Data Administration

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(CaseID:2579788)
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Someone had mistakenly combined George Washington Gee with a relative of his wife Mary Jane Smith and had her married to George Washington Gee and George Washington Schellenger.  This correction took about two months, but now the records in NFS for  this family are correct.

Correspondence with NFS

Detailed below is the correspondence that I have had with Support at New Family Search.  I have been trying to correct the records on the Gee line.  Here is what has happened this past week.

April 26

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch regarding the confusion in the family of William Gee (1739-1817)LZJG-NS1 and Abigail Mack (1740-1838) LZJ7-32S. We have separated, combined and unlinked so that the only remaining problem is that Sarah Gee (1765-) LZLN-218 is incorrectly linked as a spouse of her sister, Abigal's, Husband - John Lewis (1751-1795) LZJZ-6L7. we are forwarding this to another group to correct. You should hear directly from them if they can make the correction.
With regard to the incorrect gender on Salmon Tinker, we suggest you create another case with that request and provide some proof of the correct gender so that the incorrect gender record can be removed.
Please do not respond to this email as it will confuse the request for unlinking of the incorrect spousal relationship.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services

Dear Bother Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch regarding the combined records of Elias Gee LZ25-BD4 showing incorrect parents George Washington Gee II KWZG-Z41 and unknown spouse.

We have verified the information that you sent us for the record of Elias Gee LH27-8V9. Since you are in contact with the contributor of the relationship between Elias Gee LZ25-B8G and George Washington Gee II KWZG-Z41, we ask that you relay this information to the contributor to have this incorrect relationship deleted. You do not want to delete the individuals, just the relationship.

To delete the relationship for this record, follow these steps:

1. Go to the record of George Washington Gee II KWZG-Z41
2. From the Family Pedigree with Details view, click on Spouses and Children
3. Make sure that the Unknown Spouse with the child Elias Gee is showing on the screen.
4. Click on View relationship details under the Children Options
5. A box will pop up with Elias as child and George as the father, click on Edit next to Biological on the Right hand side
6. Another box will pop up with the option to edit the relationship or under the contributor name, to delete/ add a source/ add a note. This relationship needs to be deleted.

That should remove the relationship and change the record for George Washington Gee back to only having 2 spouses. Once that is completed, we will be able to reevaluate this case, and work to remove the incorrect parents from the record of Elias Gee MZ5J-ZK9.

We have also attached a document that gives more information on how to delete an individual from a relationship. We found this document by using the search terms Delete Relationship.

You can access this document by clicking on the blue link below. If you have not visited the Help Center recently, we would encourage you to do so. A link to the Help Center can be located at the bottom of every page in new FamilySearch.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us. You can reply to this email or you may also call us at 1-866-406-1830 (available 24 hours a day 7 days a week), please remember to include your case number 2578909 for reference.

We wish you success as you continue to use the features in new FamilySearch.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services

Dear Ivin Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch regarding George Washington Schellenger and George Washington Gee.

The link you send us did not work and when we copied and pasted it in the browser we got a message that that address was "invalid".

As we stiil would like to have a look at this for you we would appriciate it if you could attached the PDF file to the e-mail as you respond to this one.

We are looking forward to receiving this information so we can help you resolve this issue.

Sincerely

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services

Here is the link to the document. 

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxseXNhbmRlcmdlZXdlYnNpdGV8Z3g6NWVjYzhmMjI1OWQ5MjA2ZA&pli=1

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee:


Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Support.

Sarah Gee (1765-) LZLN-218  is no longer linked as a spouse of her sister, Abigail Gee's, Husband  -  John Lewis.

We have removed the record of a female named Salmon Tinker.

We appreciate your interest and accuracy in the sacred work.


Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration

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(CaseID:2574942)
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Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

RE:  Mary Jane Smith PID # KWVQ-DBL

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Data Administration.  Mary Jane Smith no longer shows with William Smith as an incorrect spouse on new FamilySearch.  Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention.

RE:  Mary Jane Smith PID # KWVQ-DBL
        George Washington Schellenger PID # LC8M-SHB

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Data Administration.  We appreciate your diligence in maintaining accurate family history records.  Although, the Sealing to Spouse Ordinance for Mary Jane Smith to George Washington Schellenger may not be correct according to your records, the ordinance itself is considered valid.  To alert the submitter of the incorrect relationship, please begin a discussion on this record.  This way you may communicate with  the patron who completed the ordinance that the relationship is incorrect and prompt them to request the ordinance be removed.  Because temple ordinances have been completed, the request for removal of incorrect ordinances must come from the submitter.
Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration

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(CaseID:2579788)
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My response:

Thank you for removing William Smith as a spouse of Mary Jane Smith Gee.    I am well aware that the sealing of those individuals cannot be canceled.  It is unfortunate that errors creep in and ordinance work is done in error.  I have posted on my blog the following quote, “To err is human, to correct in New Family Search, divine.”

Unfortunately those who submit records, combine records, separate records, add data or change data do not always add complete contact information, or only an e-mail address and do not respond. 

I think I have adequately documented in my previous attachment that George Washington Gee II Person identifier: KWZG-Z41 is not the son of Mary Jane Smith Gee Person identifier: KWVQ-DBL and Geroge Washington Schellenger Person identifier: LC8M-SHB. He (George II) was sealed to George Washington Gee I Person identifier: KWVQ-DBG and Mary Jane Smith Gee Person identifier: KWVQ-DBL on 9 May 1894 in the Salt Lake Temple in person.  I will personally look at the record next week in the special collections to affirm that fact.

I have sent an e-mail to Stephen Erekson in order that we may collaborate on this issue. The first e-mail was not returned nor answered. Unfortunately the other two contributors do not have any contact information.

There are 64 combined records for George Washington Gee II, three of which have the name George Washington Schellenger.  I can correct this record by separating out these records. All three of these records M7RQ-LK1  MKMX-L6Q  9XSC-QSW have George Washington Schellenger and Mary Jane Smith listed as parents. This appears to be a loop. 

Stephen Erekson is only the contributor of one of these records the others have no contact information.

The following comments are found in discussions on George Washington Shellengeers record;

Relationship to child: George Washington GEE II Note: George W. Gee II is born before George W. Schellinger

1 year agobyJanice Peterson

Marriage: Mary Jane Smith 5 February 1837 <Stockholm, S-Lwrn, NY> Note: the child is born before parent George W. Schellenger. Also George Washington Gee II's father is George Washington Gee I. According to my records on this date she was married to George Washington Gee I. Schellenger is Mary Jane's grandmother's maiden name.Less

1 year agobyJanice Peterson

Relationship to spouse: Mary Jane Smith Note: the child is born before George W. Schellenger. Also George Washington Gee II's father is George Washington Gee I.

1 year agobyJanice Peterson

George Washington Schellenger has an unknown spouse with children attached.  All with the surname of Schellenger.

It appears to me that someone picked up Mary Jane Smith and attached her to George Washington Schellenger by mistake.  Since this is not my error I do not wish to find the correct spouse for George Washington Schellenger.  I have enough work to do trying to correct the errors on the Gee line, but would help anyone to find the correct individual. 

April 25, 2012

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

RE:  Deborah Huntley PID # LZVZ-PTP

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Data Administration.  Deborah Huntley no longer shows with Ebenezer Mack as an incorrect spouse on new FamilySearch.  Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration


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(CaseID:2562541)
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From the Archives

An e-mail from my cousin Lamont

In trying to find out where the misinformation about Frances Gates as a spouse of Caroline Gee came from I wrote an e-mail to my cousin Lamont. His father, Lynn, was the premier genealogist of the siblings in his family.

Dear Lamont,

I suppose that you still have your father's genealogy records. Here is a problem that I came upon. Perhaps you could look at the family group sheet that he submitted and see if there is documentation as to where he got the information.

I then attached the e-mail that I sent to Family Search Support.

Here is his reply:

Laurence,

Dad was not very good at documenting his sources. Much of what he got was found at the family history library in Salt Lake and, I think, from various paper records collected from here and there and everywhere.
There isn't any way for me to backtrack to a source. So, if you are confident of your information then, by all means, make the corrections as you deem appropriate.

LaMont

Comment:
Historically there were two separate calls for members of the church to submit four generations of family group sheets to the church. This was called the four generation program. Thousands of sheets were submitted and collected and organized by surname in binders and were available to members of the church. When I saw the collection it was on the East wing of the second floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial building.

Volunteers took those records and entered each sheet into a computer database. This became known as the Ancestral File. It was not uncommon for people to copy the sheets and make that part of their personal database. There was little data quality control of the submitted sheets. Thus if the data was entered onto a sheet, it was considered correct. There was quality control of the data entered into the computer by the volunteers, but no checking of sources. Thus if someone submitted a sheet with erroneous information it would be perpetuated in private databases from the submitted sheets or from information from the Ancestral file.

A good example of this is the birth place of Lysander Gee. He was born in Austinburg, Ashtabula, Ohio but if you look in New Family Search and some of the records in Ancestral file you will find a birth place of Hanover, New York. Thus when these computer databases were combined to produce New Family Search all of these records were merged into one individual record perpetuating the misinformation.

Another case was that of Stephen Gee, the son of Solomon Gee, who was listed both as a male and a female. After submitting proof of his maleness, NFS wrote the following:
Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,
Re: Stephen Gee- PID (L7ZP-M7M)
Because the record with the incorrect gender was submitted by one individual, the record for Stephen Gee showing the wrong gender no longer appears in new Family Search. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Sincerely,
FamilySearch Data Administration

It takes a lot less time to submit the correct information than it does to change it once it is in the NFS database.

I believe it is our generation's responsibility to correct the records to reflect the true information. This will take patience, persistence and long-suffering on our part, but we now have many of the tools necessary to obtain the correct information.

Relationships to prophets

Some years ago my brother Glendon asked if Salmon Gee joined the church because of the common ancestry between the Gee and Mack families. I carefully researched this and as far as I know there was no knowledge of the relationship. I looked in the Church History Department which was at the time known as the Archives of the Church historians office. I read all the hand-written journal of Zebedee Coltrin, the man that baptized Salmon Gee, looking for clues. I found none.

Recently my brother Martell asked whether Joseph Smith ever knew that he had a common ancestor with Brigham Young or Salmon Gee. In order to get an answer to this question, I asked my neighbor Ron Barney about this. Ron has been retired form the Church History Department and worked on the Joseph Smith papers. He is probably as knowledgeable as any one about the Prophet Joseph Smith. He stated that as far as he knew, Joseph and Brigham were not aware of their relationship.

To illustrate our relationship to the Mack family I wrote a brief explanation some time ago. Here is the link.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxseXNhbmRlcmdlZXdlYnNpdGV8Z3g6MWZkNjA5OTZhNGQ3MTk3Yg&pli=1